4: A+, Would Risk Haunting: Dark Needs at Night's Edge

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01/02/19 • 69 min

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Book 4 is here and so are ghosts! We’re talking Dark Needs at Night's Edge, starring Conrad (the most tortured of the Wroth vampire brothers) and Néomi (the ghost trapped in the house where he’s held hostage while he dries out). We’ll cover heroines with agency, menstrual cycles, virgin heroes and the importance of family. Also, Jen is on about the moon again.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review.

Our next read (in two weeks) will be Dark Desires After Dusk — the beginning of the Rage-Demonarchy duology, featuring Cadeon Woede, who is forced to choose between familial loyalty and his human (or is she?!) fated mate, brilliant mathematician, Holly.

Get ready for the read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!

Show Notes

Ghosts are a human problem and preoccupation.

According to the Washington Post, "nearly half of the women who were murdered during the past decade were killed by a current or former intimate partner." Huge content warnings for everything in this article.

The Flame and the Flower, Shanna, and some of Sarah's thoughts about rape in romance.

We talk about Id a lot on Fated Mates, and we use it as a shorthand for our most primal, deep-rooted desires.

"All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way" is the famous first line of Anna Karenina. This New York Times article about the many Tolstoy translations is fascinating.

Kresley Cole isn't the only one to use the menstrual cycle as a symbol; but others wonder why menstruation is almost always absent from fiction.

A crescent moon (or "sliver moon" as Neomi calls it) is never up at midnight. Literally never.

Jen rants a lot about first person narration a lot on Twitter, but it's super OTT, so just read this thread about first person narration that was started by Rebekah Weatherspoon.

Shortly after they recoreded this episode, Jonathan Franzen stanned for third person narration and Jen realized she's just a handmaiden to the patriarchy.

Jen strongly recommends Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon. She saw Kiese Laymon being interviewed by Lolly Bowean at the Chicago H...

Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite podcasting platform — and while you’re there, please leave us a like or a review.

Get ready for the read along at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books or your local indie. Also, the Audible versions of IAD are on sale right now -- and WORTH EVERY PENNY! Listen on Audio!

Show Notes

Ghosts are a human problem and preoccupation.

The Flame and the Flower, Shanna, and some of Sarah's thoughts about rape in romance.

We talk about Id a lot on Fated Mates, and we use it as a shorthand for our most primal, deep-rooted desires.

Kresley Cole isn't the only one to use the menstrual cycle as a symbol; but others wonder why menstruation is almost always absent from fiction.

A crescent moon (or "sliver moon" as Neomi calls it) is never up at midnight. Literally never.

Jen rants a lot about first person narration a lot on Twitter, but it's super OTT, so just read this thread about first person narration that was started by Rebekah Weatherspoon.

Shortly after they recoreded this episode, Jonathan Franzen stanned for third person narration and Jen realized she's just a handmaiden to the patriarchy.

Jen strongly recommends Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon. She saw Kiese Laymon being interviewed by Lolly Bowean at the Chicago H...

Previous Episode

Horns, Claws, or Wolf Hologram: An AMA with Sarah & Jen

It’s the holidays, and whether you’re the type to hole up on the couch and read, or go for a long walk to escape, we’ve got you covered. Get ready; we’re talking about horns.

Show Notes

Update: Jen got THREE books for Christmas this year! These two from her brother, and her best friend gives perfect, #onbrand books. Sarah got Thomas Madden's Venice and the Great British Bake Off coloring book. Does that count as a book?

Sarah loves The Great British Baking Show, so you should watch. Or maybe you would just like to admire silver-fox, Paul Hollywood.

-Here's a 1979 New York Times article about this new craze sweeping the nation: hand-raised pies. Everthing old is new again in Sarah's house!

Jen no longer has the decorative wooden book item, but she does like to window shop for glass jars full of...things.

"You can put your weed in there" is an old SNL joke.

Gatsby's books are a symbol, but maybe more than you wanted to know about how books are put together and how pages are cut.

Read some more AMAs if you're in the mood, and you know Jen can't wait to read that first one.

Strawberry Rhubarb pie is Sarah's favorite, and although Jen didn't mention it, a favorite pie she makes every summer is Strawberry Margarita pie.

Our favorite pie shops in Houston, Northern Michigan, Chicago, and Brooklyn.

Charlotte Stein and Sophie Jordan are auto-buys, and A Kingdom of Dreams and Dreaming of Youare comfort reads. Sarah's most re-read IAD book is Sweet Ruin, and Jen's is Demon from the Dark.

Kresley announced in her newsletter a few months ago that the next IAD book is Munro (he's Uilleam's twin brother).

It's not only romance where we talk about unlikable heroines, but it's also that we only ask women authors if their

Next Episode

4.5: Curvy Heroines in Romance

Happy New Year, Fated Matesers (This isn’t a great name for us. We need a better name—someone name us)! We’re back, it’s 2019, new year, new us, and we’re starting as we mean to go on with Curvy Heroines, because, in the words of Julie Murphy, Every Body is a Swimsuit Body. Jen and I love a curvy heroine, and the men who love them, and so curvy romances are OUR FAVES.

Next week, we’re getting into Demons! We’ve met Cade, the prince of Rothkalina (the Rage Demonarchy) and his brother Rydstrom, its deposed King, before — they were in the Talisman’s Hie, and in Néomi & Conrad’s book. Next week, we tackle Cade & Holly’s story, Dark Desires After Dusk, with Rydstrom & Sabine’s book Kiss of a Demon King two weeks later. We highly recommend reading these two close together!

Show Notes

In the summer of 2018, Jen and a bunch of people on Twitter discussed Nine Rules to Break While Romancing a Rake using the hashtag #9RulesRake.

Sarah also has a curvy heroine romance that is coming in July! Brazen & the Beast has a gorgeous curvy heroine on the cover.

Just a reminder that Jenny Crusie is completely awesome, and Bet Me is an amazing book.

Courtney Milan has lots to say about romance. All of her books are amazing, but we talked about The Heiress Effect.

- Never Sweeter by Charlotte Stein was awareded the platinum medal in Jen's "Who Did It Better in the Library" post.

Romancelandia often recommends books with curvy and fat heroines, and there are quite a few thoughtful pieces about how we think aobut these characters our ourselves.

Naima Simone writes very excellent books and Jen & Sarah want this one right now.

Olivia Dade is an advocate for fat women in romance, and Jen and Sarah both loved this thread and want to read books about all these heroines.

Check out the full transcript for this episode.

The Rest

For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net/episodes/2018/11/28/45-curvy-heroines-interstitial
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